Category: In the News

Anyone who follows this column even sporadically knows I’m an unrepentant fan of Rosé wines. I love them for their overall lightness and versatility. For a sunny taste of southern France, I recommend trying the 2014 Whispering Angel ($18.99) from Caves D’Esclans Sacha Lichine in Côtes de Provence.

Treasury Wine Estates has taken over Diageo’s position as US importer for Provence rosé producer Château Minuty. The company, which closed its purchase of a swathe of Diageo’s wine assets last week, confirmed yesterday that it will handle three of Minuty’s expressions in the US. Diageo had assumed importation privilege in 2014.

Rosé is French for pink, but that term reveals as much about the wine category as “white” does about white wine or “red” about red. Rosé wines vary in hue from the lightest blush through salmon orange all the way to watermelon red. They’re made from all kinds of grapes, from the Rhône varietals of cinsault –

People have no problem drinking red wine in the summer, and white wine doesn’t disappear from retailers when the weather turns crisp as a good White Bordeaux. So why is it that one of the most versatile wines to serve with food or enjoy on its own is seldom mentioned once the leaves start falling from the trees? I’m talking about Rosé –

With holidays just around the corner, 2015 could be another record breaker for U.S. wine sales. Recently, the U.S. is the largest wine consuming nation in the world, overtaking France in 2010. An estimated $37.6 billion worth of wine was shipped within the U.S. last year, according to the Wine Institute. That number has been growing every year for more than two decades.

Sales of rosé wine are growing so rapidly in France that the country is now the biggest producer, consumer and importer of rosé in the world, according to estimates released Wednesday by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) and published by the French newspaper, Le Figaro.
Rosé sales account for more than 30 percent of the total wine sales in France….

One night earlier this summer, a group of six women filed into a corner booth at Mamo, a Manhattan transplant of the very popular restaurant Mamo Le Michelangelo in the French Riviera. But before they sat down, the queen bee with crown crafted by Drybar, whose vibrant turquoise handbag matched her cocktail dress, asked the host, “And is this where Beyoncé sat?” It was!

Sienna pads barefoot, striped black-and-white jersey top slipping off a tanned shoulder, over to the fridge, which has a wooden cockerel perched on top. “Wine? Shall we? I need it!” she grins, pulling out a bottle of rosé. “I do sometimes worry about my wine abilities!” she giggles, sloshing it into pretty glasses and handing me mine. “I absolutely love it…”

They also had to clink their glasses of sparking rosé after a toast from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. And after sharing perhaps the most intense moment of rosé-toast eye contact in diplomatic history — it probably only earns an honorable mention in reality-TV history, however — they then had to prepare for a private meeting.